Planet of the Apes

This is interesting in that it seems to capture the view of the religious right, in case you're curious about where they're coming from. I welcome any comments or rebuttals of this rebuttal. (I'm a little surprised he's still here, what with late week's Rapture and all, though perhaps there's email in heaven.)

As the writer of the "conscience" letter of a month ago in which I stated that its existence was evidence of a creator God, please allow me to address the various rebuttals given by you and your readers.

You, in your blog, said that "some find a moral compass without God" when writers objected to my saying that moral judgment requires a divine being. The Bible says that Scripture is absolute objective truth. It is truth for all, applies to everyone, and does not depend on one's opinion of it. However, if God does not exist, truth and morality are indeed relative. As an example, years ago when the Bible was revered as God's truth, homosexuality was condemned as a sin because the Bible said that it was. However, along the way, the Bible was slowly abandoned as a standard of morality and when that happens, society has no authority to declare anything immoral. Man then thought that tolerance was the nobler way to go so homosexuality passed from a state of condemnation, to being condoned, to being accepted, to now being openly celebrated. Profanity, abortion, pornography, etc. are commonplace now and shock no one but in the past they were taboo because the Bible deemed them as sinful. What's the sense of having a moral code if it's in a continuous state of flux?

You and others mentioned kindness, sympathy, and altruism as possible forerunners to what we call conscience but this is only possible if we knew what was the kind and symapthetic and altruistic thing to do. The Bible says that man's heart is intrinsically wicked and we can see this in a child. Leave him alone without correction and he will try to satisfy only himself...he doesn't have to be taught how to be bad, he can do very well on his own. He does need correction, however, to do the right thing. So how would we know what is good and bad unless there was an infinite reference point of absolute good? There must be some kind of moral law as a measuring stick to differentiate between good and evil and, if there is a moral law, then there must be a moral law-giver. God gave us a conscience which means "knowledge within". It is a self-judging faculty...it allows us to see a situation, assess it, and then make the right decision. It is not developed in a person, it's innate. This is why we lie when we're convicted that we did something wrong...we try to cover up to remedy a potential bad outcome. Someone mentioned that a psychopath has no conscience but that's not true...it just doesn't work anymore. The Bible says that it can be shut down by continually disregarding it. It becomes seared, as with a hot iron. It becomes desensitized, like scar tissue, so that good and evil cannot be distinguished anymore.